


Back where we began

by Petra



Series: The country of the heart [3]
Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Backstory, Communication Failure, F/M, Flashbacks, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-08
Updated: 2013-08-08
Packaged: 2017-12-22 18:37:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,459
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/916640
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Petra/pseuds/Petra
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jaro's move to America is one long fall that seems like it's going to go on for-fucking-ever.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Back where we began

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Derry (derryderrydown)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/derryderrydown/gifts).



> Thanks to [](http://sage.dreamwidth.org/profile)[](http://sage.dreamwidth.org/)**sage** for beta-reading. This story is fiction and bears no deliberate resemblance to anyone's life.

(2005)

Jaro has his answers all ready for "What do you think of Crosby?" before the lottery.

After the lottery, the questions get more heated, an edge of, "Do you feel like you've been replaced?" in them. Most of the reporters know better than to ask that in so many words.

Besides, he's not giving them what they want. "He's going to be a great player," is a safe answer. "We have different strengths," is too, for the journalists and shit-stirrers who want him to badmouth the kid, or pretend he doesn't think he's that good anymore.

It takes five days for someone to ask bluntly, "Do you wish you were back in Pittsburgh now they've got Crosby?"

"It will be more of a challenge to play against him than it ever would, playing with him," Jaro says, and sells it well enough that he keeps that line and uses it later.

He needs it too often.

He grits his teeth through Mario's second retirement and the "Think he means it this time?" jabs that are just trying to get a rise out of him by any means they can.

The reporters settle down about that one soon enough, and it's not as easy for them to come up with "What do you think about what Mario did?" questions, afterward. If they'd just focus on the fucking game, there wouldn't be any hard questions at all. Not ones they think to ask, anyway--they don't know the difference between Mario's press smile and his real smile, the difference between the way he looks at a teammate and the way he looks at Crosby.

It's not exactly the way he used to look at Jaro, sometimes, but it's a million miles away from what he's got for the rest of his team.

*

(1990)

Jaro's move to America is one long fall that seems like it's going to go on for-fucking-ever. The wall falls, the world falls into pieces, he falls out of the sky in a thin metal tube, and he falls in love, harder than he ever has.

Harder than he ever meant to, because good boys don't fall for good men. Jaro's supposed to be a good boy, and Mario's mostly a good man.

Which means the first time they fall into bed, Jaro's not expecting it, not braced for Mario's pretty girlfriend--who's probably a good girl--to kiss him with alcohol on her breath and say, "Yeah, let's go for it," not quite to him. "I love your smile," she says, and that's for Jaro, he's sure of it, the way Nathalie's touching his cheek and pulling him in for another wet kiss.

She doesn't kiss like a good girl.

Mario doesn't fuck like a good man. Jaro wants--expects--Mario on top of him, in him, taking him for all he's worth--and gets Mario's legs around his waist, Mario reaching up to kiss him and urging him deeper with his hands on Jaro's ass. "Come on," Mario says, his lips red and swollen from all the kisses. "You know 'harder' and 'deeper,' right? Fucking do it--yeah, like that."

The whole time, Nathalie's saying things no good girl says about how they look, how they sound, how Jaro's going to eat her out the second he's done, and he wants all of it at once, wants to know all the words Mario says in his ear and what they mean, how to make him say them all again.

The second time they fall together, Jaro says, "Fuck me," before Mario can, before Nathalie can make any of her beautiful, filthy suggestions. That time he comes all over Mario's chest, muffling his words that won't come out in English against Mario's mouth.

None of them have anything to do with love, not that time, not the time after that, not when it starts being a pattern--win a game, fuck, fall asleep sticky and crowded into one bed--because Jaro's not going to say it first. He's a stupid rookie with a stupid crush on his stupid, perfect captain and his stupid, perfect captain's perfect girlfriend. Watching them together hurts like hell, the way they make eyes at each other, the way they hold hands in front of people, like everyone's allowed to know they're fucking. Anybody who brings up marriage makes Mario laugh.

On the nights they don't win, he barely talks to them, barely looks at them if they're together, turns his face away and doesn't address them. What is there to say? He doesn't know how to make small talk with Western women, how to talk to Mario about anything other than hockey, and he's not going to follow them around like a lost puppy, wishing they'd won.

The one time he fucks up and says, "I wish we win," Mario socks him in the shoulder, not pulling his punch at all.

"Keep your head together out there, and maybe we will," Mario says, like it's Jaro's fault they lost. Not that game.

He gets himself off thinking about the way Mario felt inside him, last time, the way Nathalie clenched around him when she came. And he misses them.

*

(2007)

The reporters who mob Jaro with questions are used to him, ready to back off early compared to the ones who want Crosby's time, before the game like he's going to say anything other than, "We'll do our best," and after it like he's going to say anything other than, "We did our best," whatever happens.

Getting him alone long enough to ask a much more interesting question means following him like a weird fan for a little while, finding him in the moment he's by himself, no teammates right there to ask what's going on, to wonder what the hell Jaro wants with him. There are better places in town than the hotel bar where the Pens are staying, and it's nowhere Jaro would be if he wasn't trying to get some answers. "Got a second?" Jaro asks him, after the kid orders himself a juice. In a bar.

Because he's not old enough, not in New York. Not anywhere.

"Uh. Hi. What's up?" Crosby asks, and turns to look at him. His eyes look like he's afraid Jaro's going to ask him where he was three nights ago or why he was talking to a known dissident. There's a kid in there. Jaro's seen him on the ice, screaming and hustling enough to deserve most of his hype. He's not there now.

Known dissidents might be easier to ask about. At least when there's a law, there's a right side and a wrong side, and people know when they're breaking it. "Are you okay?" Jaro asks, like he'd ask a friend.

"Fine, thank you," Crosby says, automatically, before he frowns a little. "Why?"

Jaro says, "Heard you're still living with Mario."

Crosby doesn't wince. Or smile, not even a little. He just sets his jaw for a split second, like he's been asked that question enough times he wants to scream. He's good. "Yeah."

"How's that going? With Mario. And--" Jaro spares a glance for Crosby's teammates, who are at a table and ogling pretty young things, not old assholes like Jaro, and looks back at him to catch his reaction "--and Nathalie."

The kid freezes for a second. "Fine," he says, again, but he's colder.

"I know how they can get," Jaro says. "Wanting everything. Not giving you enough back."

"Excuse me," Crosby says to the bartender, getting her attention. "I just wanted a cranberry juice."

"Hang on," she says with a wave. "You're next."

"If you need--" Jaro can't offer any fucking help, not from New York, not really. "If I can help--"

"You've done enough for them already." Crosby looks at Jaro as if he's the bad guy here, he's the asshole fucking the nineteen-year-old kid, fucking up his head and his heart, telling him who knows what--if Mario ever learned those words. "Leave me the fuck alone."

Jaro says, "I'll be in touch," and leaves him there, with a phone number on a cocktail napkin.

*

(1991)

"What was this one's name?" Mario asks, and before Jaro can answer him, Mario's kissing him, biting at his lips until they're both groaning.

"Heather," Jaro says, eventually.

"Jesus," Mario says, his face in Jaro's hair. "You reek. Did she drop her perfume on you?"

"We just fucked," Jaro says.

And then he'd borrowed her body spray, because he knows it pisses Mario off when he comes back to the room they share on the road smelling like someone else. Mario shoves him toward the bed neither of them has touched yet. "I should make you shower. Wash off every trace of her, and the last one, and the one before that."

"The one before that was Nathalie. You want to wash her off me?"

Mario groans. "I'm not letting you out of bed until you stop stinking like--whatever that is."

It's some kind of flower, cloying and thick in the back of his throat. Jaro doesn't know the name in English, and in the bar where he'd met Heather, he couldn't smell it through the haze of cigarette smoke, or he might've gone home with someone else. "Make me stink like you instead."

"Fuck, yes. Come here."

*

(2007)

Sometimes Jaro wonders how many concierges give out room numbers to people who say they're old friends without making them prove it somehow, and how that goes for people who can't Google something that looks like a friendship, with a version of himself young enough to smile at Mario openly, sincerely.

He can look at most of the pictures now without wanting to yell at his younger self, mostly because he's seen them over and over again.

This concierge knows his job well enough that he calls the room first and makes the right apologies for interrupting before he lets Jaro into the elevator. It would've been better to ambush Mario, maybe get under the polished armor he's trying for these days.

Five minutes alone in a hotel room should be enough--not because of how things are, but because of how they were, once.

Mario opens the door at the first knock. "Come in," he says.

Nothing like how he used to say, "Come in my mouth," nothing at all.

Jaro doesn't reach for him.

It almost doesn't hurt.

*

(1992)

They win at home, first one of the new season. Jaro's sure they're on their way to a third Cup in a row.

Except Mario says, "Not tonight," and pulls away from Jaro.

"What?" Jaro hipchecks him. "I showered."

"Look--" Mario frowns, leans in as if to kiss him, and says in his ear "--I'm just--not up for it, all right?"

"Then I'll kiss Nathalie for you."

Mario coughs. "No. She's--" he looks around again, his expression off enough that Jaro's almost sure of what he's going to say before he says it, "She's pregnant, so. No."

"Then I say, 'Congratulations,' and just fuck you," Jaro says in his ear.

Mario sighs. "Just--go find someone else tonight," he says.

"Fine." Jaro shrugs, covering his disappointment. "Name it after me, okay?"

"Jesus, now I hope it's a girl," Mario says, and thumps him on the shoulder before pushing him down the hall. "Go on, all the hot ones will be taken."

*

(2007)

From ten feet away, with the hotel door locked and dead-bolted, Mario crosses his arms. "What's on your mind?"

"I talked to Sid," Jaro says, trying to keep his expression bland.

Mario freezes half a second too late to cover the look in his eyes. "He's a good kid."

"I knew you'd say that." Jaro wants to punch him, to shake him until he wrenches his back again, anything to make him react. "You are un-fucking-believable."

"What is there to believe?" Mario asks, his voice flat the way it used to get during interviews when he wanted the reporters to fuck off immediately and bother someone with more to say.

Jaro rolls his eyes. Some other time, he'll pretend he's too old for that. "I'd fuck him, too, if I could trip him into bed and get Nathalie to hold his hand and tell him he's pretty. But I can't fucking believe you're doing this again."

"Leave," Mario says, squaring his shoulders.

It probably works on guys smaller than him, women smaller than him, anybody who hasn't seen him sick as a dog and not fighting to hide it. He's still a big guy, still strong, still intimidating, maybe.

Jaro knows exactly where to hit Mario to lay him out on the floor. He shrugs and doesn't back down. "What the fuck ever. He's your precious star player. Do whatever you want to the poor kid, but you're not going to get that lucky again."

"I resent that implication," Mario says. Somebody must have taught him that line, carefully, but no one has managed to teach him how to lie about the shit that matters to him. His face is red with anger.

"Don't be as much of an asshole as you used to be," Jaro says, and leaves before Mario throws the first punch and puts his back out.

*

(1993)

Between them, Mario and Nathalie drink enough ginger ale and eat enough saltine crackers to kill someone.

Jaro drops by every day he's home to make sure they're still breathing, and that, occasionally, they leave the house.

"I don't have superpowers yet," Mario says, one of the days when he's not getting out of bed. "And I'm too dangerous to hug."

Three months ago, Jaro would've joked that he's not scared of a little radiation.

It's not a joke anymore, and he doesn't know what the hell to say to that. "You already had superpowers," he tries.

Mario sighs. "Just hug Nathalie for me, okay?"

"Yeah."

Safe in another room, Nathalie leans on Jaro's shoulder and says, "I can't decide whether I like 'The family that nukes together pukes together' or 'The family that upchucks together gets stuck together' more. And if I ever see another bowl of oatmeal I'm going to cry."

Jaro strokes her hair. "Upchucks is better."

"Maybe." She sighs. "Could you warm up some soup for him? I can't take the smell today."

"No problem." He opens the window for her, though it's too cold out in March to leave it for long.

*

(2007)

Jaro's phone rings two minutes later, while he's trying to decide whether to leave the hotel lobby by the front door--passing the concierge again--or look for another way out. The call is from a number he doesn't know, Pittsburgh area code, and it's after midnight. He decides that if it's Mario's lawyers, he'll fake a bad connection and turn the phone off. "Hello?"

"Thank you for answering," Nathalie says.

"Are you going to make excuses, too?" He takes the phone into the lobby and finds an overstuffed chair against a wall, where he can talk without anyone sneaking up on him.

"There's nothing to excuse," she says.

Jaro laughs, letting his head fall back against the cushions of the chair. "Nothing? So you're adopting him, not fucking him? Sorry, my mistake."

Nathalie sighs into the phone in a rush of static. "We're a little smarter than we used to be."

"That doesn't answer my question."

There's a moment of silence that goes on long enough he thinks she might have hung up, except that she doesn't hang up when she's upset. She calls back and calls back until the other person weakens or learns to unplug their phone. "It's not the same situation."

Jaro laughs at her again. "No, he talk good English. Big improvement. Then, me, no English, you, bad English--how's his French?"

" _Comme ci, comme ça,_ but--obviously he's not you. That's not what I meant. We're--" Nathalie is quiet again for a second.

"Waiting till he's old enough to drink?" Jaro asks.

She doesn't argue the point. "We're taking this much more seriously. From the beginning. Like we should have with you."

"It wasn't serious at the beginning."

"Maybe it should have been." Across the miles, despite the fact that he hasn't had a meaningful conversation with her in years, he can hear her sad smile. "It wouldn't have fixed everything, but it might have helped."

*

(1993)

He's at home when they get married. "It's a formality," Mario says.

"If you were here, you'd be welcome," Nathalie says.

They don't need him there, and Jaro doesn't think they want him there, either.

They take a year off from each other, with a few brief exceptions, without talking about it. Mario's leave of absence for the year is the only thing anyone can talk about at the beginning of the season, the question on every reporter's lips: "What will it be like without him out there?" as if Mario's never missed a game in his career.

Without him, Jaro scores, and scores, and takes home this high-breasted woman, and that man whose smile reminds him of home, and everyone else who strikes his fancy. And he scores.

He doesn't miss Mario on the ice during games because there's no space for him there, no place where he should be. It's only the rest of the time that there's a gap where he should be, on the bench, at the table during meals, a silence where he isn't laughing.

After the first few times he calls Nathalie and she is high on motherhood and sleep deprivation, he starts dropping by when he has the time to spare and stealing her away. The first time, she says, "I'd love to, but."

Mario says, "It'll be fine."

"We'll be back in two hours," Jaro promises.

She looks back over her shoulder at the baby, who's napping, until they're in Jaro's car and he manages to surprise her with a kiss. "Oh God," she says, her hands on his shoulders. "I--please don't. It's just, I'm so tired, and--"

"My parents took me for walks around the block when I was little, in a--" he fumbles for the word, because he determinedly ignores everyone who talks about babies and settling down, in case any of them decide to get him in on the conversation. "Not a wheelchair."

"A stroller," Nathalie says.

"Yes. And then I slept." Jaro taps the steering wheel. "I don't have a stroller, but I can drive around the block for a while."

Nathalie rubs her eyes. "I don't want to take a nap at you. I haven't seen you in--"

"Is it what you need?"

Her face crumples like her daughter's when the baby's on the verge of tears and he wants to hold her so much his chest hurts. "Probably."

"So take a nap. You can't take a year off like Mario can."

Nathalie puts her hand on his knee and says, "I love you," like they're the simplest words in the world.

Jaro grins at her. "Because I think you should sleep?"

"Because you wanted to see me, and I'm falling asleep, and you don't mind." Nathalie yawns. "I haven't had a good nap without anyone interrupting me for--" she yawns and loses the end of the sentence.

"Put your seat back," Jaro says, and makes a mental note to start carrying a nice blanket in the trunk. He has a wool one that has jumper cables tangled in it, but he's not going to offer that to Nathalie. It's not that cold out.

He hasn't driven so slowly for so long since he learned how a clutch worked.

An hour and a half later, he stops the car as gently as he can and calls Mario from a pay phone. "Can I keep her another two hours?" he asks.

Mario chokes. "How did you--we've barely even kissed for--"

"No wonder she's so glad to have a real man," Jaro says. When Mario splutters and sounds like he's on the verge of swearing in front of the baby, Jaro adds, "She's been asleep in the passenger seat of my car since we left your driveway."

"Two more hours," Mario says. "Three, if you can manage it. Thanks."

Nathalie wakes up after two hours. "Where are we?" she asks, her voice thick with sleep.

"Nowhere important," Jaro says. "I'll have you home in ten minutes."

"What time is it?" She sits upright with a start when she sees the clock. "I promised I'd be back. You promised."

Jaro says, "I called him. It's fine."

Nathalie sighs and makes her seatback vertical again. "You're sure?"

"Yes. Ten minutes, okay?"

She yawns. "Okay. Thank you."

*

(2007)

"He never wanted it to be anything," Jaro says. He's had worse conversations in the lobbies of hotels, in places where people listen carefully to anyone who might be doing something interesting. The place is deserted, and he won't name names.

Nathalie laughs once, and it sounds like it catches in her throat. "When did we ever have time?"

"If it was important--"

"You were important to me." Nathalie sounds like she's even farther away than she actually is. "I still didn't have any time to give you."

Jaro closes his eyes and puts his hand over them. He's not going to get choked up in a public place over a conversation he should be over. "But you've got time for the kid now?"

"It's much easier to send teenagers off to look after themselves. Toddlers just don't understand the concept. And--someday he'll learn what retirement actually means."

Laughing with her feels like a punch in the stomach, but not in a bad way. "You think so?"

"There's always a possibility."

"Sometime after the midlife crisis?"

"That's not what this is," Nathalie says. "Not for me, anyway. This is--" she breaks off. "We didn't trip him into bed. At all."

Jaro tries to remember if they'd ever tripped him, or if they fell with him, pushed him, or pulled him every time. "Congratulations, you're not as bad as you could be."

"Honestly. If it was a mistake--and I'm not sure yet--it was one we made sober, after we thought about it." She's quiet for a few seconds. "It took me a long time to realize I loved you, and longer to realize what that meant, and longer than that to say it."

"Fuck," Jaro says, and gets out of the chair, heading for the lobby doors. If he's going to have the rest of this conversation, he's going to have it somewhere no one can see his face. "You know I--"

"Yes," Nathalie says. "And I know it was easier for you, and it took him too damn long."

Someday, Jaro will forget exactly how Mario looked when he said, "I love you, but--" and said everything he could say to make the first part sound like a lie. He's not going to argue the point with Nathalie, not again. "So you decided, what the fuck, here's this kid who needs a place to stay, why not give it another shot?"

"No, God, no. I wouldn't have--we wouldn't have--except--"

Jaro can't help laughing, at her, at Mario, at the whole fucked-up situation and everything they didn't learn from it. "He won the lottery too?"

"No." Nathalie is quiet for another long moment, long enough that he checks to make sure they haven't been cut off. "You're not going to believe this, but I don't--you know I wouldn't lie to you."

"Try me."

"I--" he can hear her swallow. "I care about him. A hell of a lot. And he knows it. And--here's the real pisser--I'm not the only person who's determined not to repeat the mistakes we made with you."

Jaro is glad there's no game against the Penguins tomorrow. It's not Crosby's fault Nathalie is a terrible person and Mario is a pig-headed bastard, but bouncing him off the boards might help Jaro's frustration. Anyway, it would be better than this conversation, but so would anything shy of unanesthetized surgery. "I'm fucking happy for you," he says, like he's said every time someone he wanted, someone he loved, fell in love with someone else. "I'm sure it'll be great when he's old enough to fucking drive."

"I know," Nathalie says. "I know how it looks."

It looks like a very good reason to get drunk to Jaro. "Like you're out of your fucking minds."

"Or--impossibly lucky." Nathalie sighs. "Okay, if we were looking for a trophy boyfriend we couldn't have done much better."

Jaro snorts, but he's not going to let her laugh all of this off. "Don't fuck it up."

*

(1994)

Parts of it are easier when Mario's back on the ice and on the road after his year off--easier to see him, easier to find nights when they can fuck, easier to celebrate with him.

There's no time at home. Nathalie's chasing after the baby and pregnant again, smiling at every joke about how Mario spent his year off.

Once there are two kids, Jaro can't steal her away as easily, not even to get a little sleep. She looks happy in the brief, hectic times he sees her, but she doesn't have a second to spare for him. Sometimes he misses her while they're sitting in the same room.

Then she's pregnant again, and the team toasts Mario, the way they always toast anyone with good news.

Jaro doesn't say, "I haven't seen her in weeks," until they're alone.

They're hardly ever alone, sober, and clothed. This is no exception--Mario has his leg draped over Jaro's and he hasn't bought himself a drink all night. "She says hi," Mario says, like that's enough. "And the blowjob--that was her idea."

"Thanks," Jaro says.

He doesn't call Nathalie in the middle of the night to make sure Mario's telling him the truth.

He doesn't call her in the morning, when he might wake the kids up, over lunch when she might be busy, in the afternoon when they might be napping, during dinner because it's dinner time, or afterward because it's bedtime for kids, and he doesn't want to get them out of bed. Dropping by would be worse, so he doesn't do that, either.

He sees her a handful of times at team events before she has three kids and no time at all.

And then they're all toasting Mario for the fourth time.

"Fuck," Jaro says into the back of his neck, over and over again, until it stops sounding like a word at all. He's still frustrated after he comes, and Mario's hand resting on his chest doesn't help. "I miss you," he says, and it sounds like the stupidest sentence in the world.

Mario pats him. "I'm right here."

"Yeah, you're right here. Right where we need you on the ice. Right--everywhere--except the second we get home you're covered in babies. I haven't talked to Nathalie in months."

"So call her."

"I don't want to call her. I want to hug her from behind while she's making dinner and kiss her neck. I want to make her a cocktail like she used to drink, back when she could fucking drink, and I want to share it with her and taste it in her mouth. I want to hold onto her hips while she sits on my face and I want to hear her moan for me."

Mario is quiet for a long time. "You're not sleeping with her, are you?"

Jaro shoves his hand away and sits up. "You'd fucking know. And I'm sleeping with you, and you'd know, so what kind of question is that?"

"You sound like you're in love with her," Mario says, an edge in his voice.

"Yeah." Jaro stares at him. "Is that a problem?"

"Does she know?" Mario asks.

"Of course I told her. Years ago. I never see her anymore, so when would I tell her again?"

Mario sighs and runs his fingers through his hair. "I can't believe you said that."

"I miss her, okay?"

"Not that part." Mario gets up and starts finding Jaro's clothes and shaking the wrinkles out. "You never told me you're in love with her."

Jaro gets up and cleans up as fast as he can. Mario's no good at subtle hints, and when people don't take them, he gets mad too quickly. They don't need to wake anybody else up. "I thought you knew. I thought it was fucking obvious." If they're going to have to say all the things staring them in the face, Jaro decides to get them all out of the way at once. "Like the way I'm in love with you."

Mario drops Jaro's pants. When he stands up with them again, he's red in the face. "Yeah."

"Is that a problem, too?" Jaro asks as quietly as he can.

"No, you're great," Mario says, offering him his pants, and no more words.

They've been fucking for seven years, off and on. Jaro stares at Mario, trying to figure out when that sounded like a good idea, when he decided to put that much of his energy into someone who doesn't give a shit about him unless they're fucking. "Thanks," Jaro says.

They fall back into bed a few more times.

Jaro doesn't call Nathalie, and he doesn't say anything about love to Mario.

He's more relieved than he wants to admit to anyone when Mario retires. It's hard to remember what he has to tell the press, that he has to talk about Mario as a player, a teammate, not as a man, and definitely not as a fuckbuddy.

Hockey without him is unbalanced, at first, but Jaro finds his stride quickly and breaks all the records he can reach. He's still on Mario's team, thanks to huge amounts of imaginary money that never changed hands, but it's easier to be at a distance. Mario owns the team, and he has enough important-sounding titles to squash anyone less strong than he is. He has four kids and a beautiful wife, and he treats Jaro the way he always did in public.

Except they don't fall into each other anymore, and they're never alone together.

Life without Mario there all the time is easier. There are other people in the world.

Everything is easier.

And then Mario unretires.

*

(2007)

Nathalie says, "We're trying not to fuck it up. I promise."

"You don't have to promise me anything," Jaro says, after he counts to five. Ten is too far to reach. "Haven't you made enough promises, to him, to the kid, to everybody?"

"Maybe, if they call me on it when I mess up."

"You called me," Jaro says, deliberately misunderstanding her.

"I know." She takes a long breath. "I didn't want you to think we were still that stupid. I wanted--I wanted you to tell me it's going to be all right, but that's not your job."

"No," Jaro agrees. "I'm hanging up now. Call him back and tell him I'm not going to the press. Not unless things get so ugly the kid needs someone on his side more than I need my fucking dignity."

"God, no. No. They won't, we won't," Nathalie says.

"Good," Jaro says, because she deserves better from him than 'I'll believe that when I see it.' "And tell him--"

"Yes?"

"Tell him I said to keep his bad back and his bad heart off the ice, and maybe the kid will be okay, if you let him grow the fuck up without trying to be Mario all the time. He's not going to get that tall and he'll kill himself trying."

Nathalie makes a sound that isn't quite a laugh, and might be a sob. "If he so much as reaches for his skates, I'll call you, and you can remind him why he shouldn't."

The only reason Jaro thinks about the 2000 season, ever, is so he can remember not to repeat his mistakes--the sex they shouldn't have had, the times they tried to talk, the promises they made that weren't theirs to make, no matter how many titles Mario had at once or how many times they wanted to. "It's a deal," he says. "Good night."

"Call me back when you're safe at home," Nathalie says.

Jaro smiles because she knows him far too well, and if he has to call her, he won't stay out. If he's going to drink, he can do it at home, where it's cheaper and much easier to get to bed at the end. "Okay," he says, and hangs up. 

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] Back Where We Began](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4878862) by [RsCreighton](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RsCreighton/pseuds/RsCreighton)




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